


On  a sunny afternoon in Basle Station, 1967

by seraphim_grace



Series: Latveria presents The Xavier school for Gifted Youngsters [1]
Category: Marvel 616, X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-07
Updated: 2013-04-07
Packaged: 2017-12-07 17:36:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,281
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/751187
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seraphim_grace/pseuds/seraphim_grace
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A conversation between Fury and Xavier in regards to the mutant problem.</p><p> </p><p>Set in a fictional verse where the beach divorce didn't happen, they rescued Emma and ran off to Latveria because both Russia and America would be after them. It is implied that Charles is related to Victor Von Doom, and the school is set there.<br/>In this fragment Fury was sent by the CIA for reasons of their own to talk to Xavier.<br/>I love the idea of this verse but I've never written more than this for it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	On  a sunny afternoon in Basle Station, 1967

**Author's Note:**

  * For [keire_ke](https://archiveofourown.org/users/keire_ke/gifts).



Fury looked around the gathered tables of the large coffeeshop outside the train station. No one looked twice at him, although he couldn't imagine that a young black man in a black leather coat and eye-patch was that common a sight around here. He counted off the tables mentally, just as he had been told to by his superiors when they had agreed to this meeting. He sat down and waited for the girl to come over with the menu.

The station was a large stone edifice, a Victorian confection of white granite and glass and the clock read a quarter to three. The coffee shop was bustling and buzzing with noise and people milling about, some reading newspapers or novels but not one of them looked at him. It meant his contact was already in place.

“Good afternoon,” the man said. He was sat facing him, which he had not been a moment before. “I was beginning to wonder if you were going to do another sweep looking for mysterious agents.” He raised his hand and waved over the fraulein who was moving about. “Charles Xavier at your service, welcome to Switzerland.”

Fury sat down and looked at the man. He had heard so much about this international terrorist he had assumed, especially with the information floating about the agency, that he wouldn't look quite so unassuming. Of course he could be making Fury think he was unassuming. He was a small, slight man, with brown hair, which was unremarkable, and very wide very blue eyes and a very red mouth, as if he had been eating raspberries. He was wearing a white shirt and pants exactly like everyone around him. When the fraulein came over he ordered, in flawless German, a chocolate, coca cola and a double espresso. She smiled and left to fetch the drinks.

“I should know better than to drink coke,” Xavier says with a rather self deprecating smile, “but Victor has completely vetoed it from Latveria, he believes that it is the reason for the problems with America's education system, and I'm not entirely convinced that he's wrong, but I still miss it, and so I take the opportunity.” 

“Then why move to Latveria?” Fury asked.

“Do you always say exactly what you want? I imagine the agency does not care for that trait.” Xavier was playing with a spoon on the table, turning it into a teeter totter over his finger. “But Latveria is an underestimated and very beautiful country, and it has quite a few advantages, the lack of coke not withstanding.” Fury didn't want to be charmed by Xavier, he had been warned that the man was very charming, but it was hard not to fall victim to that easy and effortless charm. “And one of those advantages is that neither Russia nor America will move against it. Victor would not tolerate it.”

“Victor Von Doom is a tyrant and a dictator.” Fury said.

Xavier smiled, it was strange how his smiles reached his eyes when Fury had been told that he could not be trusted. When he was used to agents whose smiles couldn't reach their eyes no matter how hard they tried. “Is that the rub?” the other asked, “of course the problem with Communism is that people won't share, it's not in their nature, and the problem with democracy is that it trusts the people to make educated decisions, which en masse they do not, but the problem, of course, with dictatorships will always be dictators.” It seemed to be some kind of joke but Fury didn't dare laugh. “So until there is a better option a certain dictatorship is the best choice for those I represent.”

“Homo superior?” Fury asked, trying very hard to throw Xavier off his game.

“We call ourselves mutants, it's not quite as incendiary.” Xavier answered, and then went quiet as the fraulein brought over their drinks, the coffee for Fury, and the coke and hot chocolate for Xavier. “I do like my tea, but there are so few places in Europe that understand it, they serve it with hot milk, if you can believe.” He sounded horrified by the prospect.

“Why arrange a meeting in Switzerland then?” Fury had assumed that he might be in control of the conversation, but he really wasn't.

“No extradition treaty.” Xavier answered blithely. “I do not know if I am still on America's most wanted list but I assumed we could have a polite conversation without the black bag over my head.” He lifted the chocolate to his mouth even as his voice continued, “as if it would do any good.”

“You have a very low opinion of the agency.” Fury said. He had only agreed to this meeting if they agreed not to snatch Xavier.

“I know more about it than I care to.” Xavier said, licking the cream from his lips. “I would advise that perhaps you would be better taking the other offer you have been given.” 

“Is that what you arranged this meeting for?” Fury asked.

Xavier laughed. “No, I am merely making conversation.” He looked like he might laugh, “you must wonder, of course, if I left the agency, even if only as a consultant, and moved to Latveria just how such a well known dictatorship can be an improvement.” He raised a brown eyebrow in amusement. “And why such famous terrorists seem to be so very restrained there? why we haven't overthrown Victor at all.”

“I don't imagine _you_ need to.”

At that Charles smiled. “You are, of course, quite right, but Latveria is not the Dantesque Hell the agency wants you to believe. If we consider the terrible things he has inflicted his people with, why he's forced on them a medical infrastructure which is absolutely world class, and it is free to all who live there. There is mandatory education of a high level. There is no persecution, how could there be when Victor hates everyone so very equally,” he stopped, “unlike of course Dr Richards, he hates him just a little more.” 

“He has reduced his attacks upon the doctor lately.” Fury conceded.

“And one can't underestimate the employment opportunities in building government sponsored death rays.” He sipped his coke through the straw, looking up at Fury who wanted to like this man. “You look down on Victor because he is, as dear Emma put it, as mad as a bag of weasels, but he uses his madness for the betterment of his people, human and mutant alike.”

“And the mutant Lensherr, he openly attacked the agency, it makes any negotiations between us difficult, I assume, of course, that he also is as mad as a bag of weasels.” 

Charles' expression hardened. “On the contrary, Erik is probably one of the most intelligent men I have ever met, he has a hard path but he never turns from it, can you, yourself, claim the same? He attacked the agency because he knew he could completely destroy them, and yet he chose not to. He wanted you to know that. Does that sound like the behaviour of a lunatic?”

“Agent McTaggert suspected that you were lovers.” Fury said, watching Xavier's face for what he thought, but instead of anger or resentment Xavier seemed amused. “Would that alter your opinion of him? I don't need to be intimate to reach into a man's mind and take what I want.” Xavier said calmly, draining his glass of coke. “I am merely too polite to do so,” Fury wasn't sure that it wasn't a threat. “And it is another advantage of Latveria that that is no one's business but my own.”

“There are those who think that it might be possible to control him if they had those people dear to them.” 

Xavier laughed. It was a real belly laugh. He even wiped tears from his eyes. “Oh my dear, Mr Fury, I almost invite you to try, but would you take Erik to control me, or me to control Erik? and then what would happen with the other teachers at the facility which is the topic you're being so careful to avoid even thinking about?” He leaned back. “A Wyndham fan? You surprise me, Mr Fury, or is it now mandatory reading in the agency? Personally, I prefer the Chrysalids but I do not think that would be surprising.”

Fury blinked again, “so thinking of walls won't help?”

“A tower would work better, my dear,” Xavier said, “it becomes much harder to scale, although I think if you reread the book the teacher maintains his thoughts of the wall, it is all he thinks of, he does not merely throw one up when he wants to hide information from a telepath.” He stopped. “There is a tactic some of my students use where they sing Last Train to Clarkesville until I leave and can't get the dratted thing out of my head. It works quite well.”

“You call them students.” Fury said, “isn't that a strange name for trainee soldiers.”

Xavier laughed again. “My poor little cuckoos?” he asked, “they are students, learning to control their abilities that they are no longer dangers to themselves or others. How many problems have you had with mutants that weren't in the pay of your government?” He stopped, “my mistake, they aren't paid are they?”

“And what about Muir Island?”

Xavier raised an eyebrow that that might be more interesting than he had previously supposed. “Not all mutations are viable.” He said quietly, “a girl in Canada, Cheryl, opened her curtains one morning, no different to any other morning, and caught fire. She ignited. Every time she is exposed to sunlight her skin ignites, or what remains of it. Unlike Mr Storm she has no natural defence against it. By the time they realised that she had manifested and took her underground ninety eight percent of her body was covered in third and fourth degree burns. She is at Muir island, aware, kept safe deep underground, but she will probably, due to the nature of her burns, never leave her bed.” He took a mouthful of his chocolate, which was now nearly almost gone. “If you arrange an appointment then I am sure that your government and the British one can come to an agreement.”

“But yet the facility is on an island owned by your family, and is very high security.” Fury suspected he wasn't meant to know about the island, but yet Xavier seemed prepared to answer his question.

“It is a mutually beneficial agreement with the British government,” he said softly, “the mutants there will almost certainly never leave, but that does not make them any less dangerous unfortunately. One child sweats an acid so powerful that it can eat through titanium. The process is so painful that he is quite mad, but under sedation he could be used against his will. He needs to be kept in conditions that prevent his mutation from hurting him, but that is the least of the dangers. One has a mind so brilliant he can statistically predict the future, but is so completely sociopathic that he excised lengths of his own intestine because he didn't know how it would feel. He is now hooked up to a mountain of machines keeping him alive. As I said, not every mutation is viable in the resulting organism.”

He smiled, “Yet one, Callisto, her mutation is remarkable, her left eye is an open portal to what Dr Strange called a demon realm. We worked with him trying to contain it, and whilst we did she was at Muir Island. She has now joined the facility in Latveria as a fully functioning member of the team.” That was a scientist talking, it was in Xavier's file, but he had been a terrorist for years now. “Muir Island is merely a hospital, it is what it appears to be, it's security is high because it needs to be.”

“You are being awfully forthright with an agent who is under instructions to shoot you if you try anything.” Fury said, all of a sudden his eye patch.

Xavier smiled and every head at the cafe turned to look at Fury. “I am sure the Swiss would be delighted for a known American agent to initiate a military action on their soil, especially one that was sanctioned. Then there is the other details, what would Erik do? Or my dear Emma? The other teachers at the facility? Or even Victor? Let us suppose that I was not now in control of your sniper, who is at a biergarten not far from here sampling a rather fine French cidre and apfelkuchen, and you did manage to shoot me. It would not be in the best interests of your country, even if it was in the agency's, and we know how it is with the agency, that one hand often does not know what the other is doing, and worse that that hand will happily stab the other to get ahead.” Fury seethed. He had been reassured that his sniper would be out of the telepath's range, it could be that Xavier was lying but he had no reason to. He could have killed the sniper, instead he was getting him drunk. “So, Mr Fury, shall we discuss things like grown ups now, without the threats and territorial pissing. And please tell your other team, the one you didn't know about until now, that if they make a single move towards this square I shall reinforce the agency's mistake – Lensherr is not nearly as dangerous as I am. Now, more coffee, Mr Fury?”

**Author's Note:**

> The books that Fury and Xavier refer to are "The Midwich Cuckoos" and "The Chrysalids" by John Wyndham
> 
> "The Midwich Cuckoos" features a class of children who are, amongst other things, telepathic and how their teacher overcame this ability, it is suggested that the CIA are using this as a model to use against telepaths, but Xavier finds it hilarious.  
> "The Chrysalids" is about human mutation and how it is percieved. Both are VERY famous sci fi novels (the author also wrote The Day of the Triffids, the beginning of which was referenced in 28 Days Later (the hospital scene is the same) and again in the Walking Dead)  
> "The Midwich Cuckoos" has been filmed several times, most famously as the "Village of the Damned" but is also a mutant, a group of sisters who function as a single unit and who are trained by Emma Frost.  
> If you've ever played Silent Hill you go down Wyndham Street to Midwich Elementary.  
> "The Chrysalids" has never been filmed (but was the novel SG studied for her GCSEs)  
> The Author was creditted as one of the major inspirations for Dr Who (and is awesome, although I can't say I liked him when I first read him) Mostly this note is read John Wyndham


End file.
